United States Chemical Safety Board Requests Comments on its Draft Strategic Plan for 2012 to 2016

Washington, DC, March 29, 2012 - The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) today announced it is requesting public comments on its draft 2012-2016 CSB Strategic Plan. The draft plan is an update of the 2007 - 2012 CSB Strategic Plan, and includes the CSB's strategic goals, strategic objectives, and associated measures for managing and evaluating agency operations.

CSB Chairperson Dr. Rafael Moure-Eraso said, "The CSB is well positioned to work towards its mission of accident prevention. We will continue to advocate for the right to a safe workplace, and the efforts to make this right a reality."

The draft plan is now posted on the CSB's website and available at www.csb.gov. Please submit comments by April 12, 2012, via email to strategicplan@csb.gov.

The draft plan which is derived from the CSB's legislative mandate has three strategic goals and builds on the agency's 14 years of operating:

• Goal 1: Conduct incident investigations and safety studies that involve accidental releases or potential releases of hazardous chemical substances.
• Goal 2: Improve safety and environmental protection by securing implementation of CSB recommendations and broadly disseminating CSB findings.
• Goal 3: Preserve the public trust by maintaining and improving organizational excellence.

Goal 1 drives the core mission of the agency by ensuring that the CSB selects and completes incident investigations that have the potential to generate recommendations with high preventive impact. It also focuses the agency on developing and completing safety studies with an emphasis on emerging safety issues. Goal 2 focuses on implementing our recommendations and their associated advocacy and outreach. The highly successful CSB safety videos are an important component of the agency information dissemination efforts. Goal 3, on organizational excellence, serves to bind all agency processes using best practice project management. This includes the agency's high-performing information technology, administration, general counsel, procurement, and financial services functions.

To update the strategic plan the CSB interviewed stakeholders in industry, academia, and other government agencies. The interviews were structured and designed to obtain feedback on the current state of the CSB and its mission and goals, and to explore ways to improve effectiveness. In addition, the CSB conducted internal interviews with Board Members as well as key managers and staff and conducted an internal survey to obtain employees' views about what should be included in the new strategic plan.

The CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents. The agency's board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. CSB investigations look into all aspects of chemical accidents, including physical causes such as equipment failure as well as inadequacies in regulations, industry standards, and safety management systems.

The Board does not issue citations or fines but does make safety recommendations to plants, industry organizations, labor groups, and regulatory agencies such as OSHA and EPA. Visit our website,www.csb.gov.

For more information, contact Communications Manager Hillary Cohen at 202.446.8094.